The veil of the deep midnight is quickly erected in the sky, as the clock signals the twenty-second hour of the day, watching over the two of us sitting face-to-face, looking at the factory map that Mirai has traced out using her vision and the satellite. We are trying to find out how to launch a full-scale attack, bringing down the factory within the first and only attempt, drawing various lines and curves on the map to see which paths are the most appropriate. - There are these corners that will act as blind spots. If we use these corners, we will penetrate through their first line of defence. Then the Pyro-planes will sweep through using this trajectory. - That is a good strategy, but just a little bit change. We can send false drones here to attract their attention first. Then, we continue with your strategy. Our strategy is definitely to cause false alarm, then breach the factory, go straight to the deepest floor and finish off the boss. Easier said than
The intense patrolling of the drones continues until the early morning, which leaves us with no way to use any electrical devices, so we decide to just sleep. And it seems like other residents in the area had soon fallen asleep before the midnight came, so effectively, nobody, except us, are aware of the situation. It is currently five, and immediately after the drones seem to disappear from our window view, we gear up to attack the underground facility as early as possible. This time, we cannot resort to ordinary travelling, because it is literally digging our own wave to enter an unprotected car. I send a message to Issac, who is currently dead asleepin his comfortable bedroom to let him know that we would be heading out first. Then, we get out of the house. Mirai takes out the familiar plane that we have been constantly using for missions from the archive. Right at the moment the plane is taken out, I withdraw my photon magnum pistol from my pocket... ... and shoot d
Operating at a high velocity, but slow enough to not destroy my body, the carriage would take ten minutes to pass through the factory. At the same time, I am sure that the Intruders have deployed, if not all of their forces residing in the factory dormitory, up to ninety per cent of their forces. The drones and flying units hovering in circles on top of us and the armed Intruders underneath that just wait for us to fall and devour us like fierce predators are closing onto us. - Mirai, can we deploy our full-scale attack yet? - Why not? Go ahead! After getting permission, which I actually do not even need, I open the tablet, scroll through the archive and start spam clicking on the screen. Above me now, there appear squadrons and squadrons of a variety of aerial units, from the instant use Suicide Drones to the heavier units that provide more powerful support such as Pyro-planes and autonomous jet fighters X128. Upon my press, all of them start firing. N
You know, after years of honing my common sense, if you tell me that on a random day, a random package just spawns in front of my house out of nowhere, and from inside the package, a random entity just casually tells me to embark on a fifty-year journey to save the entire humanity from an invasive alien force, whose probability of occurrence is as good as the numerical metric dimension of a hydrogen atom, I would just laugh and brush it off. That is literally the plot of a science fiction novel. Just a dream that any person can have. Yet, this weird dream of mine has been around for a solid half a year, and it is not like I would wake up any time soon. There is a saying that in a dream, half of the brain is like a director, and the other half just watches it happening like a movie, getting surprised at the plot twists that it creates itself. But, just think of it. What an irony, is it? Even for a brain, generating such vivid content, even without prior exposure or experience, is
- Wah, stop being so careless with your life like that. You do not have nine lives. - That is the voice of Mirai, who is currently "unemployed". Right before the thorns can touch me, Mirai flicks a plate in the middle of the gap between my body and the thorns. Although the thorns are more durable than the shield itself, it gives me an extra second or two to divert my leap course, effectively evading the thorns before they slam themselves onto the ceiling and break. - Tsk, every time one of you interrupts, I forget that the other one exists. - The boss looks a bit pissed off, as he starts to inflict more frequent attacks. The Suicide Drones keep charging at the boss and attempt to blow the exterior layer of his head up, but they are mostly ineffective, if not for the smoke coming from the explosions that may or may not hinder the boss's vision. The other drone units that attack from a range are also firing at full power, but it does not look like they would do
Truly, there are things that I have yet to learn from this even more mysterious humanoid robot right beside me. Right in front of my eyes now, there stands a six-metre mechanical and manually controlled robot, rivalling the absurd size of the boss's robot. Before I even realise it, Mirai has one-handedly picked me up from the ground and jump into the interior of the mech, via an opening in the chest area.- Why are you so hurried? I am still marvelling at the beauty of this year 2100's creation.- We are not in a power ranger series. That boss will not spare some time watching us looking at the mech. Now, get yourself familiarised with the controls. It is just like a video game. - Mirai knocks on my head. The boss initiates the first attack. Metallic cannons mount on its right shoulder, and loads of energy spheres are hurled at us in a blink. While I am focusing on the array of buttons, levers, controls and the real-time screen in front of me, Mirai has summo
Getting ejected from the mech suddenly, I barely have enough reaction time to activate my propellers, which thrust me back and accelerate me into the air, right before landing on the ground which is now full of metallic drone scrap, as well as rock fragments and dust. - At least tell me if we are going to do something crazy. - Time is gold, Yuusha. You should have known that long ago, and it is not like you would die anyway. Mirai has gotten ready with the signature, massive Railgun that by now, she is the only one with enough strength to even raise that gun and wield it effortlessly like a knife, so my job is to clear the path for her to reach the boss's core chip and destroy it. I prepare the photon shotgun and reload it with a cartridge of slug shots. - You can just stop your imagination. There is no way that you can touch my armour. - The boss still tries to bluff. - Let's see who is imagining. We have done it once, and we will do it again
The Earth, 12 August 2079, in a small apartment in the middle of the metropolitan city of Tokyo, Japan,... - Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you... The candles flicker in the dim light of the small living room, joining the cheers of four people in the apartment who are clapping delightfully towards the fourth birthday of a certain somebody. - Wah, thank you, mama, papa, and grandma! The petite figure joins her little hands together, makes a prayer, and blows the candle. As innocent as the deep blue sky, untainted with clouds, and as cute as a button, as well as a mysterious aura of a knowledgeable scholar, the lovely child is nobody else, other than Mirai Sasaki. The clumsy hands then grab the plastic knife, her eyes look at the cake, calculating the angles in her mind. Then, she cuts the cake into four exactly equal portions. The cake may be fragile, so her mother helps her to distribute the four pieces of the cake to the family. Born in a fam